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Novelist Richard Price

Price is the author of the bestselling novels Clockers, about life in the inner-city world of drug dealing (which was made into a film), and Freedomland, which was inspired by a real-life incident in which a woman alleged a black man carjacked her and took her two children. Price's latest book, Samaritan (Knopf), is about a man who returns to the New Jersey town where he was raised to teach, and the bad consequences of his good intentions. Price is also a screenwriter. His films include Sea of Love, Ransom and The Color of Money. This story first aired Jan. 7, 2003.

21:53

Other segments from the episode on August 26, 2003

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, August 26, 2003: Interview with Richard Russo; Interview with Richard Price.

Transcript

DATE August 26, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Richard Price discusses his novels and life
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. It's book week on FRESH AIR. Throughout
the week we're featuring interviews with all sorts of writers. Today, two
novelists who are also screenwriters, Richard Price and Richard Russo.

Richard Price has written several novels who have been adapted into films,
including "Clockers" about crack dealers and cops, and "The Wanderers" about
street gangs in the Bronx, where Price grew up. Price also wrote the
screenplays for the films "Sea of Love," "Mad Dog and Glory" and "The Color of
Money."

His new novel, "Samaritan," is about a guy who, like Price, grew up in a
housing project and became a successful writer. The character in the novel,
Ray Mitchell, has made a lot of money in LA writing for a TV series set in a
high school. After September 11th, Ray returns to New Jersey to be near his
daughter, who lives with her mother. He also returns to his old neighborhood
in the hopes of sharing some of his success by teaching writing at his former
high school and even helping some of the people there with their financial
troubles. But some of his attempts to do good blow up in his face. In fact,
at the beginning of the novel, Ray has nearly been killed by someone he knows,
but he refuses to reveal his attacker's identity, which creates two mysteries:
Who did it and why is Ray protecting him? Here's a reading from the chapter
in which Ray teaches his first creative writing class.

Mr. RICHARD PRICE (Author): `OK. Let me ask you, this is creative writing.
This is volunteer. Somebody tell me why you're here.' `Because I got
stories,' said Rashad(ph), his hand half raised. `Yes,' Ray said almost
gratefully, `I got stories. You all have stories whether you know it or not.
And here, right here, is where you're going to give them up.' He reached into
the shopping bag at his feet, pulled out seven of the 10 red-and-black writing
journals he had bought for them across the river in Chinatown, and dealt them
out like playing cards. `But, doctor, I don't have any stories.' `Oh, ho,
indeed you do, my dear.' Ray backsliding, doing voices once again, trying to
get them to laugh, although he was too jazzed now to care if they did or
didn't.

`You have crazy mad stories, all of you. Everybody here. If I go around the
table and squeeze you a little, each and every one of you can give me six
great stories. That's six times seven kids equals 42, plus 14 between me and
Mrs. Bondo(ph) here, equals 54.' `Fifty-six,' said Epham(ph). `Fifty-six,
thank you, stories. They're about your friends, your neighbors, your
families. Most definitely your families. And these are very important
stories to you. Stories you've grown up with.'

`The time my uncle got so angry that... The day my grandmother left her house
thinking that... My parents--the first time they met, they... My
brother--just 'cause that other kid dared him I couldn't believe it when he...
Oh, man, my mother--I've never seen her like that when she... And all these
stories. They're up here,' touching his temple, `and in here,' touching his
heart--corny, but what the hell? `And we love them because they're ours.
Because even if they're not true--and believe me, at least half of these
stories are not--they've set up house in us. They're part of us. They are
us.'

`Yeah, OK. OK.' Talking to himself now more than to them. `This is great.
Great. OK. This class, forget it. OK? Don't even think of it as creative
writing. It's just stories. The writing assignments--stories. Telling
stories. Can somebody wake this guy up?' One of the girls punched the boy
Jamal, whose forehead was resting on the table. Ray's so happy now, stories
his lifelong lifeline to his daughter, to romance, to himself. Stories, the
ballast, the crash cart, the air. `And the thing is, what are you? Hopewell
projects(ph) kids? Neighborhood kids? Oh, man, nobody out there knows what
you know. But what you may think of as everyday, as boring, that's like nah.
That's me, when I want to read something, a book, a story, a newspaper
article, I'm thinking time is tight. Why should I read this? What does this
individual have to tell me that I don't already know?'

He then checked himself, something off in the message. `Not that what you
write has to be a show-stopper, mind-boggling or, you know, can you top this?
All I am saying is, believe me, you're all so much more interesting, so much
more special than you might think. So every week, you're going to write me a
few pages. Doesn't have to have a beginning or an end. Just some kind of
snapshot. Word picture. Bring it in and read it to the class or I'll read it
for you and we'll talk. Questions?'

Jamal, the sleeper, raised his hand. `Does spelling count?' The girl with
the big-framed glasses, Mira(ph), clucked her tongue in irritation. `Spelling
is good. It's good to have spelling.' His disappointment in the question was
neutralized by this Mira. Something cooking there. `Can we write in pencil?'
`Pencil, pen, blood, as long as I can decipher it.' `Do they have to be
true?' `Fool me.'

GROSS: Richard Price, do you think that was a good lesson that he was
delivering?

Mr. PRICE: It worked for me.

GROSS: Yeah, I figured.

Mr. PRICE: I mean, you have--that's how I started wri...

GROSS: Where did you get it?

Mr. PRICE: You know, I mean, you start writing, you know, and you look
around at your life and you're 18 and the whole idea of write about what you
know can be deadly for somebody who doesn't even vote yet. So what worked for
me, and I think what worked for some of my students over the years, was
reaching back into their family mythology and not being, you know, focused on
the fact that all you know is that you miss your girlfriend over Thanksgiving
vacation and you hate being with your parents.

GROSS: One of the things Ray is up against as a teacher is that the kids are
giving him these kind of pre-packaged stories. Talk a little bit about the
stories he gets from the students and how that connects with what you found
when you were teaching people who had had really interesting lives but that
wasn't what was coming back at you as the stories they were writing.

Mr. PRICE: Well, what happens is that, you know, when you're trying to get
kids to write, or trying to get anybody to write, you know, who's not a
serious writer, rather than think about what's meaningful to them, they try to
anticipate what would be meaningful to you. And so the source is always
coming from the outside. What does this guy want to hear? What will get me
an A? How do get this homework assignment as quick as I can? And the irony
is that, you know, so they go to television for their stories, or they go to
sort of crummy books that they've read, you know, for ideas when, in fact, you
know, there's diamonds in the back yard. The minutia of their everyday life
is where all the jewels are. And repeatedly I've had to sit kids down and
say, `What are you writing this? Tell me about yourself. Tell me you're--oh,
you're father's a black fireman in a white suburban town? Well, why on Earth
are you writing about people sniffing angel dust in the South Bronx where
you've never been?'

GROSS: Right. You know, Ray in his attempt to reconnect with the people back
home and to help them, because he feels this need to help them, he does favors
for some of his old students, for some of the new young people that he's
meeting, even lending money for some pretty harebrained business schemes. But
he gets into a lot of trouble in his attempts to do good. What made you think
about the kind of trouble you can get into in your attempt to be generous?

Mr. PRICE: I mean, I felt like I've gotten in a lot of trouble--not the type
of, you know, mortal peril that Ray gets into, but I've found myself in
situations with people that were disadvantaged and I wanted to do something
for them--these people perhaps have helped me out doing the legwork for my
earlier books that took place in the same fictional Jersey city. And I get
involved in people's lives either teaching in the public schools or involved
with families.

And what happens is you can get very excited by your own power to do good, to
come down into people's lives and give them things or grant them things. And
these things might be material; they might be friendship; they might be just
the simple curiosity of another human being, the first time somebody in your
life has asked you about yourself. How do you make it through your day? And
this is very seductive to people and it's also very seductive to me, who's
putting out all this stuff. And it's the dangerous thrill of goodness.

At some point though, the project is over, the relationship sort of diminishes
and I move on. And I've oftentimes felt like I've left people seduced and
abandoned when, in fact, I can put down on paper, `Well, I've done this. I've
done that. I've done this.' It has nothing to do with that. It's about this
promise, this intangible promise that you've given them that you'll always be
there, or you're going to show them a certain way and you open up like the
hope door in their chest and the dog barks and the Caravan moves on and you're
gone.

And sometimes, when people can get wrapped up in their own ability to do good,
they're--it's a kind of dangerous, heedless thing because they don't really
know and they can't really appreciate the depth of need and feelings that
they're provoking in the people that they're exercising their, quote, unquote,
"goodness" on. I think Delmore Scwhartz said, `Ego is always at the wheel.'

GROSS: Do you think that this is particularly true when somebody who is or
has become pretty middle class or affluent goes into a neighborhood where
people are pretty poor and where the family isn't necessarily intact, so
there's already been a history of people walking out on you, and a history
maybe of, you know, professional social workers, teachers, coming in and out
of your life and ultimately leaving?

Mr. PRICE: You know, the thing, though, is--yeah, for certain people--for a
character like Ray, who is returning from Los Angeles and returning from, you
know, the life of being a TV writer, and is not returning to the housing
project where he grew up, but to a gated community and sort of descending on
this housing project, you know, trying to be like a Good Samaritan. But there
are people that are Ray's age and of Ray's background who are there every day
and understand better how to temper their relationships. I mean, the cops. I
don't know about social workers, but teachers--there are people like Ray who
have not gone off to Hollywood, who have the left the neighborhood to live in
the suburbs, but they're back there every day doing their job. And these
people have much more of a solid sense of how to relate to people. But it's a
huge thrill and a bad thrill for somebody to come in out of the blue and get
the gut reaction of `thank you, thank you, thank you,' because that thank you
could be like heroin and you'll do anything to keep the thank yous coming.
And you hurt people.

GROSS: So when you were writing "Clockers," about teen-agers who were selling
crack on the street, you hung out in New Jersey neighborhoods trying to meet
kids who were really in this kind of situation in neighborhoods where they
kind of thing was going on. Are those the kids you are talking about that you
got to know well?

Mr. PRICE: Yeah. I mean, not anybody in particular. It's just like a
general feeling that I found myself sort of going off getting carried away,
and letting my alligator mouth write checks that my hummingbird body couldn't
cash. But you know, it's not about the people and it's not about the highs
and lows and the haves and the have-nots. It's about someone who's very weak
and very needy. And at the same time, it's very powerful in a very small
pool. And even if that neediness is to evoke tenderness in people or to give
out tenderness, they're like big Thanksgiving floats and they get buffeted by
the wind. The float hits the light pole. The light pole falls down and
kills, you know, three parade viewers and then the float just moves off. I
mean, people that are big like that in a small pool are kind of oblivious to
what they're doing to people and they just go on their merry way.

GROSS: My guest is Richard Price. His latest novel is called "Samaritan."
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Richard Price, author of "Clockers," and "The Wanderers."
His latest novel, "Samaritan," follows Ray Mitchell, a TV writer who after
September 11th moves from LA back to New Jersey where he grew up.

Ray is separated from his wife.

Mr. PRICE: Right.

GROSS: And when he comes back to New Jersey, he hooks up with his daughter
again. But he's very self-conscious around her and realizes he's treating her
like a first date. What gave you that image?

Mr. PRICE: Oh, I got a couple of daughters. I use them for practice. It's
just--you know, I find myself--I mean, sometimes with my kids, the bad parent
part of me is the part of me that feels like it's running for office and needs
their votes and sort of like can cater, you know, to what they would like as
opposed to doing the more difficult stuff, which is to say, `No, you can't do
that.' You know, there's a certain weakness in me that I have to fight to be
a parent. I mean, you know, it's a big, you know, cliche to say, you know,
`Don't be a friend. Be a parent. You know, there's plenty of time for a
friendship when they turn adult themselves. Right now they need yes and no.
They need guidance,' you know. But basically I have to struggle with the fact
that all I really want them to do is adore me, you know, and I'm running for
office, you know. And I catch myself and I'll pull back, but it's hard work.
But that's what I'm saying, for people who have this sort of weakness in them
where they just live to get other people's eyes getting that gleam in them.
You know, children are very dangerous people because they're so easy and, I
mean, you can hurt them.

GROSS: There's a...

Mr. PRICE: And hurt yourself and not even know.

GROSS: There's a scene where Ray takes his daughter--his 13-year-old daughter
to the shopping mall and tells her, `Today, a dollar's like a penny. You can
spend anything. You can buy anything.' And he expects he's really going to
be a hero to her, but she gets really angry and sullen and kind of throws on
the floor the things that he's bought her. What's that about?

Mr. PRICE: It's about how easy it is to underestimate the perceptiveness and
intelligence of children, and how they can read you like a comic book and have
been all their lives if they're yours. And any kid, if not--you know, even if
they're not able to put it in words, knows exactly the weaknesses of their
parents, and knows exactly the strengths of their parents. And it so rarely
has anything to do with what comes out of the parent's mouth. I mean, you
know, I'm in therapy for I think 3,427 years. You know, I've put 11 shrinks'
kids through Bennington already, I think.

But, you know--and so when I'm talking to my kids, I know exactly what to say
to sound, you know, like, you know, sharing and caring and, you know,
sa
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.

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